New Delhi, April 13
In a major relief to the Haryana Government, the Supreme Court today upheld an Act passed by the state government, providing for imposition of levy on rice millers for procuring paddy for making rice for sale to exporters.
This was expected to bring additional revenue of nearly Rs 70 crore to the state government annually, the Haryana Government counsel said.
A Bench comprising Chief Justice V.N. Khare, Mr Justice S.B. Sinha and Mr Justice S.H. Kapadia said under the Haryana General Sales Tax Act (HGSTA), exemption on the levy was available only to rice exporters, not to the millers procuring paddy for making rice for export.
Disposing of a bunch of petitions by rice millers in the state, challenging the constitutional validity of certain provisions of the HGSTA, Mr Justice Kapadia, who wrote the judgement for the Bench, said under Clause (C)(A) of Section 15 of the Act, the exemption was not available to rice millers.
The millers had challenged the validity of Section 15 (C)(A) on the grounds that it had identified paddy and rice as two different commodities for levy of the tax on rice, procured for export by the millers.
They had also challenged the validity of Section 5, read with Section 17 and Schedule ‘D’ of the Act, passed by the State Assembly in 1973 on the ground of jurisdictional competence.
